Russians Storm Village But Only Nine Hostages Freed; Dozens Of Chechen Rebels Die

Risking the lives of more than 100 hostages in an effort to wipe out their Chechen rebel captors, the Russian military hurled rockets and shells at this tiny village, then stormed in for fierce house-to-house fighting Monday.

Nine hostages were freed, but the fate of the rest was unknown as night fell. Dozens of rebels were killed and two Russian soldiers also died.

Military planes dropped flares, illuminating the charred houses of Pervomayskaya so soldiers could hunt for the rebels and their captives.

The rebels, estimated to number between 150 and 250, put up fierce resistance with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades and managed to knock out several Russian armored personnel carriers.

Gen. Mikhail Barsukov, who was in charge of the Russian operation, said the attack was launched because rebels had started killing hostages Sunday.

The rebels denied the charge.

“We want the terrorists punished and wiped out from the Chechen land,” President Boris Yeltsin, speaking in Moscow, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The Interior Ministry in Moscow said 60 rebels were killed, 15 seriously wounded and an unspecified number of others captured. Two Russian servicemen were killed and at least 16 were wounded, said ministry duty officer Anatoly Zinevich.

The deafening roar of rockets, artillery and machine-gun fire at 9 a.m. announced the start of the Kremlin’s attempt to end a tense six-day standoff with the band of rebels who have deeply embarrassed the Russian military.

On Jan. 9, the rebels slipped past border guards and seized up to 3,000 hostages in Kizlyar, a town in the Russian republic of Dagestan. At least 40 people were killed in that fighting.

With a promise of safe passage, the gunmen released most hostages and headed for Chechnya with the rest of the hostages in a convoy of buses. They were stopped by Russian forces at Pervomayskaya on Wednesday, just short of the border.

The rebels refused demands to free the hostages without a new guarantee of safe passage back to their break-away republic. The Russians brought in hundreds of troops and encircled the village with tanks and artillery.

Monday’s shelling set homes on fire, and thick smoke spiraled into the sky above the village.

Suaybat Alieva, a 45-year-old nurse who fled a few days ago to the nearby village of Sovetskoye, winced as a 122 mm howitzer opened up on Pervomayaskya.

“I spent 30 years building our home,” she said, watching the battle from a safe point across the plains. “Our cattle, our clothes and everything is there.”

Russian gunships swooped down, firing rockets.

One rocket destroyed a school where some of the hostages, including women and children, had been held. There was no immediate report of casualties.

Rebels had guarded others in village houses and a mosque. Reports put the number of hostages at between 70 and 120.

Holding out some hope that many hostages had survived the attack, the Interior Ministry said the rebels had transferred a large number of hostages to a concrete building at a military checkpoint, ITAR-Tass said.

Federal Security Service spokesman Maj. Gen. Alexander Mikhailov said the Chechen gunmen had killed two hostages Sunday; he identified them as Interior Ministry troops. ITAR-Tass, quoting unidentified security sources, said the rebels shot six more Interior troops Monday morning as well as six Dagestani elders who tried to organize talks.

A rebel spokesman, Movladi Udugov, denied the Chechens had killed any hostages, the Interfax news agency reported.

In the Chechen capital of Grozny, a violent explosion rocked a movie theater, and rebel fighters there tried to attack government and military buildings. All traffic was banned, apparently to minimize rebel actions.